On Tuesday 11 February 2025 08:58:49 am wn4isx via groups.io wrote:
This might be of interest to radio enthusiasts in this group.
Cable TV systems have always had problems with RF leaking from and into their "closed systems."
This is a bit one sided industry view that is nonetheless interesting.
Read all 3 parts and then the Distributed Access Architecture.
At one point the local cable system used a pilot tone smack dab in the middle of the 2M ham band to set the automatic gain of their 'gazillion' line amplifiers. Their system leaked like a sieve and a group of local hams sat up an impromptu network on that frequency, which shut the entire cable TV system down.
Heh. :-)
The cable system was violating the law with excessive leakage. The same technical flaws that result in leakage that allow radiation of cable TV signals also allows external RF to get in.
The cable system issued vague veiled legal threats, which resulted in the FCC paying them a visit with an order "Clean up your act, now."
Right...
No cable anywhere around here, and no prospects of cable anytime soon, it's too rural and spread out. Places where I used to live were another story. One place where I lived I had some coax running from one window to another. Looking out the window one day I see this cable truck sitting outside and a guy climbing a ladder, wire cutters in hand. I leaned out and came real close to dumping that ladder over, with him on it. He climbed back down and got on the radio in his truck, then telling me that his supervisor wanted to talk to me. I declined and told him to get off the property, since he was screwing with something he had no idea about. That company was a smaller local outfit, based in Hershey, later on gobbled up by whoever, eventually comcast, I think.
Last place I lived before moving here the building across from me, visible from most of my windows, had all sorts of cable hanging on the side of the building, which had a number of apartments in it. This was comcast, who apparently has some kind of a setup where if you're a subscriber and have internet you are also providing the wifi to any other subscriber, anywhere in the country. So every single one of those wifi devices was parked on the same channel, which happened to be the channel I was using also, though I'd set mine up before they came in there with their crap. Leakage out of that system was pretty bad, too, though I didn't find it interfering with ham radio activities much.
The one thing that sticks in my mind with regard to those companies, big or small, is how arrogant their attitude is. The junk mail was incessant, and I couldn't get them to stop. Asking one of their phone reps how to stop it got me the suggestion that I file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission...
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
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Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
